That was the message from David Coiley, Inmarsat’s VP Aviation, who was speaking at London’s Aviation Festival on Tuesday 15 September.

He said the network would offer “great flexibility and suitability” for narrow-body operators in two to three years time.

The hybrid S-band satellite and ATG system will offer two 15MHz chunks of spectrum and utilise 4G LTE technology. Commenting on an earlier speaker who had joked that satellite systems need a “canoe” fitted to the fuselage to work, Coiley said that its European Aviation Network would use more discrete antennas, much as Gogo’s ATG system in the USA.

The service will offer up to 10 times less latency (delay) than satellite networks and up to 75 Mbps speeds. Deutsche Telekom says that it is building 300 new LTE transmitter sites, with 80km range, across Europe.

“The antennas will be small, lightweight, low drag and low cost. The total cost of ownership will be superior to any existing satellite service,” he said, adding that Inmarsat is not abandoning its existing L-band SwiftBroadband and upcoming Ka-band Global Xpress services.

SwiftBroadband, which has provided the inflight connectivity backbone for many airlines with its 432kbps speeds, will become the weapon of choice for aviation safety services (air traffic control) once it receives its final certification later this year. Safety services are currently being trialled by Hawaiian Airlines using a Cobham Aviator S terminal – the S standing for “safety”.

The system enables the fast and efficient transfer of data messages using Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband connectivity via a secure, dedicated “pipe” to the cockpit. The ACARS message is encapsulated into an IP “message”, which is then stripped out on the ground before being fed into the ACARS data network (in this case ARINC’s).

In terms of commercial aircraft, GX will better suit wide-body aircraft flying on trans-continental routes and those outside Europe.